To The Stars

“Trouble in the fields at Taekeng-four,” Semenov said. “Seems a lumper tangled with a harvester and knocked it out. They want you right away.

“Wait, wait for me,” a small man called out, fighting his way through the crowd and hurrying after Jan. It was Chun Taekeng, head of the Taekeng family. He was as ill-tempered as he was old, wrinkled, and bald. He punched one man who did not get out of his way fast enough, and kicked ankles of others to move them aside. Jan did not slow his fast walk, so that Chun had to run, panting, to catch up with him.

The maintenance copter was in front of the machine shop, and Jan had the turbines fired and the blade turning as Chun Taekeng climbed arthritically in.

“Ought to kill the lumpers, wipe out the species,” he gasped as he dropped into the seat by Jan. Jan did not answer. Even if there were any need, which there was not, wiping out the native species would be next to impossible. He ignored Chun, who was muttering angrily to himself, and opened the throttle wide as soon as they had altitude. He had to get there as soon as possible. Lumpers could be dangerous if they weren’t handled right. Most of the farmers knew little about them — and cared even less.

The countryside drifted by below them like an undulating and yellow specked green blanket. Harvesting was in its final stages so that the fields of corn no longer stretched away smoothly in all directions, but had been cut back in great gaps by the harvesting machines. Rising columns of vapor marked the places where the machines were working. Only the sky was unchanging, a deep bowl of unrelieved gray stretching from horizon to horizon. Four years since he had seen the sun, Jan thought, four endless and unchanging years. People here didn’t seem to notice it, but at times the unchanging half-light was more than he could bear and he would reach for the little green jar of pills.

“There, down there,” Chun Taekeng called out shrilly, pointing a clawlike finger. “Land right there.”

Jan ignored him. The shining gold hulk of the harvester was below them, half covered by the draped mass of the lumper. A big one, six, seven tonnes at least. It was usually only the smaller ones that reached the farms. Trucks and track-trucks were pulled up around it; a cloud of dust showed another one on its way. Jan circled slowly, while he put a call through on the radio for the Big Hook, not heeding Chun’s orders to land at once. When he finally did set down, over a hundred meters from the harvester, the little man was beginning to froth. Jan was completely unaffected; it was the members of the Taekeng family who would suffer.

There was a small crowd gathered around the flattened harvester, pointing and talking excitedly. Some of the women had chilled bottles of beer in buckets and were setting out glasses. It was a carnival atmosphere, a welcome break from the monotony and drudgery of their lives. An admiring circle watched while a young man with a welding torch held it close to the draping curtain of brown flesh that hung down the side of the machine. The lumper rippled when the flame touched it; greasy tendrils of foul-smelling smoke rose from the burnt flesh.

“Turn off that torch and get out of here,” Jan said.

The man gaped up slackly at Jan, mouth hanging open, but did not turn off the torch or move. There was scarcely any distance between his hairline and his eyebrows and he had a retarded look. The Taekeng family was very small and inbred.

“Chun,” Jan called out to the Family Head as he tottered up, wheezing. “Get that torch away before there is trouble.”

Chun shrieked with anger and emphasized his remarks with a sharp kick. The young man fled with the torch. Jan had a pair of heavy gloves tucked into his belt and he pulled them on. “I’ll need some help,” he said. “Get shovels and help me lift the edge of this thing. Don’t touch it underneath though. It drips acid that will eat a hole in you.”

With an effort a flap was lifted and Jan bent to look under. The flesh was white and hard, wet with acid. He found one of the many jumping legs, the size and roughly the same shape as a human leg. It was folded into a socket in the flesh and it pulled back when he dragged on it. But it could not resist a continuous tension and he drew it out far enough to see the direction of bend of the stocky knee. When he released it it slowly returned to position.

“All right, let it drop.” He stepped away and scratched a mark on the ground, then turned and sighted along it. “Get those trucks out of there,” he said. “Move them off to left and right, at least as far away as the copter. If this thing jumps again it will land on top of them. After the burning it might just do that.”